(March 16, 2015 at 11:43 pm)Jenny A Wrote: The malfunction is in thinking. I've heard voices I can't find in the house and seen people in my own back yard that turned out to be tree stumps.
You are so right.
Priming is a really powerful thing too.
There are always more scary shadows lurking in the dark rooms of my house just after I've viewed a scary movie.
These fears are real and probably throw back to a time when there were actual existential dangers hanging about just outside the campfire light. Those of us who didn't feel them and wandered into the woods at night really did get eaten.
Religions just co-opt that fear for their own ends.
The trick is in figuring out when your mind is feeding you bad conclusions. This is really hard: It is your mind that is fooling your mind- it has a privileged position to do that.
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat? 
